


"The First and the Last"

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Cambridge Spies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:59:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The firsts and the lasts of Guy, Donald, Anthony and Kim.  They have always been connected, even before they met and after they are gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"The First and the Last"

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Deense

 

 

"The First and the Last"

A/N: This is based in part on the movie "Cambridge Spies" and on the real Cambridge spies, all of whom are deceased. However, anything relating to anyone else who may be living is done purely for fictional purposes and for no profit, of course.   
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The first time Guy was drunk was at the age of ten. He was sitting in the wet grass, feeling the moisture soak into his bare thighs and up through his short pants. In front of him, his elder brother Nigel and some of his mates were playing rugby. He wasn't allowed to join them. He was too short, too young, too clumsy. Guy didn't mind.

One boy, Roger Maury, had the ball. His long, fourteen-year old legs jutted out of his white shorts and galloped across the make-shift pitch. He was like a tanned colt: steam shot from his nostrils as he shouted to his team and sweat dripped into his dark eyes. Guy could smell it. But it wasn't offensive; it was sweet, like chocolate. The smell of it filled his lungs and made him light-headed. He watched as Maury was tackled and three or four other boys thrust themselves on top of his body, screaming and yelling, pinning him to the grass. Guy couldn't blink. A most pleasant shudder slid its way from his back, down his backside and seemed to settle between his legs, almost as though he had to urinate. But it was different. The grass was laughing at him; the sky was drowning him. He wanted to dance like a clown, strip his clothes off and dive into the pile of boys, swim into their skins and fight the tide forever.

But he didn't.

Maury and Nigel ran past him, his brother whacking him on the head as the pack followed them. It was raining, and like frightened dogs afraid of being cleaned, they headed toward the old barn. When he could breathe again, Guy jumped to his feet and went into the cool darkness with them. Dirty hay and old horse shit stung at his nose and eyes.

"Mine's bigger." Nigel was saying in his ridiculous half-changed voice. His white arse glistened with moisture in the dark.

"Not either. Mine's thicker." A boy called Witte.

"Gits. You're both pathetic." Maury. He flipped his sweaty bangs out of face and grabbed at Nigel. "Someday you'll be a real bloke, Burgess." Nigel let out of a grunting sort of groan, grabbing for Roger's prick.

Witte and two other boys immediately dropped their shorts and began to stroke themselves. The remaining two, closer to Guy's age, picked up the ball and ran back out into the rain, tossing it to one another, laughing. They didn't seem to think there was anything odd about what they had just seen. Guy stood where he was, feet planted strongly in the mud near the door, not daring to move, mesmerised. He reached down into his own shorts, grabbing at his member, trying to match the movements of the older boys. The feeling of having to urinate returned, but nothing more. His hairless body was still in complete hibernation.

"Oy, look at the little ponce!"

Witte had finished mimicking Onan, and since he had not been struck down, he grabbed at Guy's collar, thrusting him toward Roger and Nigel. "The little wanker likes the look of your prick, Maury."

Guy had no idea what he had done wrong. Roger was looking down at him, his hair flopped down into his gorgeous dark eyes. His chest was still heaving. His shorts were still around his ankles. "True?"

He looked at his brother. He thought about threatening him, running to spill it to their mother. She'd throw her hand to her massive bosom and faint dead away. But he didn't want to do that. He just wanted to be with them, to be one of them. "Yeah," he said. "It might be worth somethin' one day."

Laughter. Even Nigel, who never laughed at him unless he was hurt, doubled over. A line of red dripped down Maury's finely chiselled cheek-bones, nearly hidden by the mane of hair. But after a moment, he too, snickered and hoisted up his shorts. "Cheeky little nancy-boy, ain't you?" But he patted Guy's face. He hoped the smell of his hand--turf and sweat--would stay stained there forever.  
******************************************************************************************************************  
His mother was talking to an auntie or two. Roger Maury's mother was there, a wide-hipped woman who wore rouge. She talked loudly, and Mrs. Burgess looked suitably humiliated, clutching her tea cup. None of them noticed Guy slinking past like so much household vermin. The forbidden bottle, formerly the property of Lieutenant Commander Malcolm Burgess, was buttoned tightly into his son's overcoat. It was a tall, shapely bottle that might have reminded Guy of a woman's body, were he not ten-years old and were he not completely uninterested in women's bodies.

Back in the barn, the Dewar's White Label was passed around, and Guy felt the honey burn taste of Scotch whiskey making sweet love to his lips, his oesophagus, his stomach and finally his brain. Roger Maury, who had gotten the lion's share of course, wrapped his arm around the boy's skinny shoulders. "You're alright, mate."

Guy grinned, snatching the bottle from Witte. He would be drunk for the second time that day.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

First, there was his mother. She was Kim's Golden Calf, worshipped as some primitive tribes do the sun or the moon. His earliest memories were of her, always her, and one in particular. He was playing with his toy wooden fox, sitting on the kitchen floor, the hem of his mother's favourite lilac-print dress always within reach of his tiny fist.

He had been hurt. Burned, in fact, a cinder from the wood stove attacking his shirt, a smouldering black ring burning into his delicate skin. He had screamed, a cry that could be heard in the Heavens. In an instant, the safe protective hands of womanhood were around him.

"There, there, love," her voice said. "Mustn't cry. Mother is here." She washed the red wound with a bit of cotton and then slathered it with fresh butter. Forever after, Kim would avoid it on his bread, preferring orange marmalade. The creamy smell of it made the blistered skin just above his navel quiver.

The mother hugged him, his nose filling with her scent: lavender water and Pond's cold cream. "Better, Harry?"

He nodded. She was the only one who called him `Harry' rather than `Kim,' the nickname his father had given him from his favourite Kipling novel.

The rest of the day, Kim sat shirtless, the hot Indian sun turning the kitchen into a boiling Hades. But every few hours, the cool arms would again wrap around him, placing him on the table where his mother's fingers would carefully wash away the sting of his first pain.  
*****************************************************************************************************************  
The first girl was Punjabi, and he never knew her name. He was twelve, already terribly manly with a square jaw and a thick, muscular trunk. He caught her eye out in the market where the noise was like a fire that burned the hairs in his ears. She was older than he. Fourteen or fifteen, perhaps, and she was wearing trousers.

Kim had never seen an Indian woman in trousers. In fact, he had only seen two ladies ever don a pair, and they were tourists. American, more than likely. Flappers, his mother had called them, shaking her head in disgust.

She was purchasing produce from a mammoth-breasted old hag. Mrs. Philby always avoided buying from her because she wore a snake charm around her neck. She said she probably practised Hoodou, and it wasn't proper to worship idols. Kim bravely approached the girl, straightening his tie. She was inspecting mangoes, her coffee-coloured fingers deftly exploring the fruit for signs of softness, weakness.

"The lighter the skin, the sweeter it will be," he said, getting very close to her ear so she could hear him.

"What?"

"That's what my mother says, anyhow. The lighter-coloured mangoes have a sweeter taste."

She raised her painted eyebrows at him. Her eyes were gold. "Really? Smart woman, your mother."

Her accent was English. She had been in Leicester, at a girl's public school since the age of seven. She didn't particularly care for mangoes, but her mother had sent her to do the marketing because the servant was ill. She preferred apples, a suitably British fruit. He bought her one, green and fleshy, and a Red Delicious for himself. She allowed him to accompany her home. They walked mostly in silence, crunching their fruit, Kim heaving the heavy basket of mangoes.

"Do your parents mind? The trousers, I mean?" The crowds were growing smaller and the houses larger when he asked.

"Of course they mind. That's why I do it." He stared at her, and she giggled. "They're always telling me, `you'll never get husband if you dress like that.' But you know?"

"What?"

She grabbed his arm and pulled him to her, nearly knocking him off his feet. Her breath penetrated his ear. "I don't ever want a husband. Men are far more fun to simply play with." Then she snatched the basket from his hand, kissed him full on the mouth and ran off down a side street, yelling thank you.

Kim stood, hard as wood and shocked completely for several minutes until a rickshaw driver yelled at him in Hindi to get out of the way.

He would always be in love with foreign women after that. Every wife and sweetheart he loved would be a vain attempt to recapture the nameless Punjabi slut.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The first time Anthony is enraptured he is nine and his mother and elder brothers are at the National Gallery in London.

He has never seen art. His father finds most modern art sacrilegious, allowing only reprints of the passion of Christ on the cross and the Last Supper to hang on his walls. Anthony has studied these tirelessly. Once, as he gazed at Christ suffering on the rood, his father came to stand behind him, resting his massive paw on his son's shoulder. "It is an incredible thing," he had said, his voice as rich as when he was on the pulpit.

"Yes."

"Never forget, Anthony," the voice said into his ear. "Never forget that Christ died for your sins."

The boy nods, not trusting his voice. Not trusting he will say that, to him, the use of red ochre as a contrast to the wood, or the balance of the Jews and Romans, painted in more darker, sombre strokes than the Christ is what he finds incredible.   
*  
His mother appreciates art. His brothers, who are twelve and fifteen, appreciate nothing. Until they come to The Rokeby Venus, a canvas oil painting of the goddess Venus, naked, in front of a mirror. Her round bottom was sensually painted in Venitian white.

Wilfrid, the eldest, gazes with mouth slightly agape, but Christopher, who has recently discovered how both hilarious and embarrassing the world really is, points at the arse and laughs even as the red floods his freckles. "Lookit...you can see a nip...well, better not look, Tony." He smacks his brother's arm.

"Be quiet, Kit," the mother says. "Show some respect."

They come across another oil, this one painted on sleek mahogany. A tiny gold plate calls it The Storm, by Diáz. Anthony moves to be in front of it. It is dark, shades of black and brown, but there is light in it, trying desperately to get through. The clouds are bold, so thick and devastating, yet somehow there is hope around the flowery edges. A streak of cadmium yellow, mixed with cobalt. Like the sun trying to rise from the ground. He cannot move from the painting. He has never seen such a thing. The angry brushstrokes, the passion (and not of the Christ), the shocking way the heavens and the earth collide into one. His heart is racing as he stares at it. He is light-headed, so completely happy, yet he has no idea why.

Every emotion he has ever felt, amplified a thousand times over, is trapped here in this one painting. The very paint is pumping through his veins. The glass is like a door and he is desperate to step through it, into the swirls, the angles, the juts and dabs.

"Diáz is divine." His mother's arm is around him. "So exquisite, so real."

Anthony takes her hand, shaking his head softly. He can't answer. Surely, there aren't words accurate enough to describe how he feels.

As they walk down the steps into London's wilderness, the youngest Blunt says he wants to be an artist.

Wil sniggers and Kit laughs. "D'you hear that, Mother? Tony wants to be an artist."

"Well and why not? Some of the greatest men have been artists. Da Vinci, Michelangelo..."

Christopher laughs again. His mother whacks him on the back of the head.

"What's wrong with being an artist?" Anthony feels his heart beat faster.

"Nothing...if you want to be a ponce." But Christopher says it in a low voice, and the mother doesn't hear.

Wilfrid looks down at his brother, manly and superior at fifteen. "Not all artists are ponces, Kit." He likes the Impressionists more than he will admit.

"The good ones. It's a requirement, isn't it?"

Tony doesn't know what a `ponce' is, only that it must be bad from the way Kit says the word. He cannot see how anything so beautiful can ever be bad. Wil cuffs him on the shoulder, and he grimaces, rubbing his arm. "Be more worried what Father will say, huh?"

Anthony lags behind as they walk down Trafalgar Square. He notices the angles of the lions guarding Nelson's column, the colours of the water jutting out of the golden fountains. He has never noticed such things before. He wonders if he will ever be this happy again. He assumes he will be because he is nine and knows nothing.  
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The first thing Donald loved was his pet: a white deaf Scottish Fold cat. He called her Snow and she was his first protector, hissing and scratching at anyone who got too near him. She loved only Donald.

He had been ten when he'd found her stiff and cold, half buried under some tall grass in the field by their house. Her long angelic fur was clumped with red, noticeable bite marks around her neck. Donald had pissed himself. And then cried so hard he gave himself a nosebleed, the droplets falling on the body, clinging to the mangled clumps of Snow's fur.  
*******************************************************************************************************************

The first person he is in love with is a boy called Duncan Campbell at Gresham's School. Donald is unlucky thirteen, tremulous with strange new desires. He notices things he would never have cared about before: the other boys' faces, how they are no longer plump and pink but etched in shadow and downy hair. When they touch him, on the football field or simply horsing around, his skin feels like it is melting candle wax.

Duncan Campbell is a marble white boy who smells of evergreen and sin. He captains the football team and during the day he calls the other boys `fairies' and `ponces' in a heavy Scottish brogue and smacks them on the arses. During the night, he climbs into Donald's bed which stands next to his and grinds his groin into his hand.

The first time it happened, Donald had laid stiff as a board in every sense, too terrified to move. The next time, he rams his tongue awkwardly into Duncan's crooked teeth, his hand feeling the short, stubbly hairs on his prick. The third time, just as his mind is filling with red fog and stars, the house-master shines a torch on them.

A week later, and all the boys are screaming off on the Michaelmas holiday. Donald takes the train, crying softly into his wrist as they whip past empty fields of grass. He is sick just as they are pulling into the station, retching into the abandoned lav. When he thinks about what his father will say, he would be sick again, but there is nothing left in his stomach.

Christmas comes and goes with silence. Carols are sung, cookies are eaten, and snowball fights are engaged in. When their presents are opened, Donald receives an Enfield hunting rifle, the first gun he has owned that is not a toy. He looks at it, smiles, and mumbles thanks. He is afraid to touch it. He is even more afraid for anyone else to touch it.

The day he is to leave, his father drives him to the train station personally. The sky and ground are both gray from the snowfall the night previous, but he drives fast despite the ice clinging to the road. Donald hugs himself, afraid to look outside and even more afraid to look at his father. Finally, they are there and a porter takes Master Donald's trunk. He is that close to the train, that close to freedom. He can't believe his good fortune.

He should have remembered that he is unlucky thirteen. His father's hand is out, and Donald takes it, large and rough in his own. "Good-bye, father," he says.

But the large paw pulls him forward, stumbling into his parent. His father bends down, until his mouth is by his son's ear and he can feel the warm breath and the warm words. He tries to deny the tremble in his legs as his father quotes Bible passages, tells him what happens to sodomites, how God and the angels cry.

"I won't have the family name disgraced, Donald." His ear is wet from the fury of the words, damp with saliva. Donald vigorously shakes his head and the pain ceases in his fingers as his hand is at last released. "Have a good term, then."

"Ye...yes, sir."

The dark eyes trap him one last second. "I know you won't disappoint me."

The train-ride is quicker this time and there are no tears. Donald sits glued to the window, chin in hand. He stares at the ground, still empty. Still lifeless. It was covered with snow.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The last bottle would be Stolichnaya, 80-proof, gold label. There was a horrid drawing of the hotel Moskva on it. Stalin had had it built, and the four architectural designs, each more excessive and hideous than the last, were all incorporated because no one had had the bullocks to ask the man which style he preferred. Guy hated it. He walked by the square where it stood frequently, sometimes daily, and every time he did, he felt a passionate urge to rip up chunks of foundation with his bare hands.

And he would, too, if it weren't so bloody cold. But it was always cold. Even in the summer, when everyone else would shed their hairy garments and head off to the shores to soak their rancid bodies in the Caspian or the Baltic, Guy would still be swathed in Savile Row wool. Lots of pockets, of course.

He had lost the ability to feel heat anymore. He would fuck his latest boy--every decade or so the comrades would send him a new model--but it was like fucking frozen fish. Frigid and Slippery. In January, when the vodka-coloured sky most irritated him, he had asked Illya (the latest fish) to build a fire. He stuck his hand in the flames, just to see. It burned him, of course. His pinkie finger was completely seared, the skin hanging off the digit like black icicles on the awning.

"Fuck!" He'd yelled. "Fuck, fuck, fuck me!"

"Is all you ever think of," the fish had said. His accent was heavy, his English conveniently monstrous, but his prick large enough that Guy could forgive the fact that he had no one to talk to. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a real conversation about anything. Literature, politics, the fact that nothing had changed. He had worked his entire life, donated his heart and every other organ to a cause that he still believed in, but had changed nothing. Illya had taken him to hospital, but he hadn't said anything about what Guy had done, except:

"You English are fucked-up people. You know, right?"

Burgess smiled, smiled down at his hand, now red, as Red as Illya and as Red as the beating heart on his sleeve. "Yes. Yes, we are. But I'm not an Englishman anymore, Illya. I'm a bloody Red Russian communist!" He laughed to forget how much his hand hurt. He could say that. Could say that even though he still wore British suits with his Trinity tie and could still speak barely three words of Russian.

*******************************************************************************************************************  
Somehow, he knew that the bottle would be his last. He usually drank whatever was cheapest, whatever would burn his stomach and brain the fastest. But that day, in the heart of August with its heat that created a crust of cold, dirty sweat on his scalp, he had felt as though he deserved something special.

Everyone knew him. Dima, the massive walrus that sold him his booze, called him Comrade Burgess. How you are today, Comrade Burgess?

A bloody, bleedin' peach, Dima. He slipped the cold glass bottle into a pocket, caressing it lovingly with one finger. The vodka was all he loved, nowadays. No one loved him.

Outside, he slipped the cap from the bottle and poured the water down his gullet, barely tasting it. The sun burned down on the gray sidewalks, the grey streets, in contrast to the corbel arches and flamboyant gold helmet roofs. "The fairie-tart gingerbread houses," he liked to call them. Russia, with all its preaching of stern-fisted, steel-hammered manly blue-collarism, looked as though the entire country had been designed by Oscar Wilde. The signs, with their Cyrillic letters, were like a code he couldn't break. He had always been good with codes. It was a requirement when one was a queer. Although Donald was better. And Kim. Probably Anthony as well.

Two men walked past him. "Privyet, Comrade Burgess," said one, tipping the brim of his filby. Guy didn't have the first clue who they were. But everyone knew him. He was watched. Everywhere.

"Do Svi-bloody-daniya!" He yelled, waving the bottle after them. "Up with Mother Russia! Death to capitalist dogs!"

The younger of the two, fleshy and pink, shook his head at his companion, an older gent with a washed-out face and blank expression. They both turned their eyes down, avoiding looking back at the miserable Englishman. Guy could almost hear them clicking their tongues, pitying him. He pitied himself for a second or two, until further partaking of the Stolichnaya washed away all such notions.

With the exception of the slight unbalance of his own step, he was perfectly aware of the stillness of his flat. The curtains hung limp, a coating of dust tickled the piano keys in the corner. The fire had long gone out. Illya had disappeared. He was like Tertius Lydgate, in Middlemarch, a book he both hated and loved. He was alone even when he was not alone, and he would die a miserable beast his `memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man's past is not simply a dead history'

Fuck. Why was he dwelling? He had known that this was how it would be. Dwelling on everything, everything he couldn't change, wouldn't change, shouldn't change, and the sun, making him cry like ice tears. FUCK! He threw the bottle of vodka against the far wall, feeling slightly better that it had shattered just seconds before he had. Even when you're silent, the noise is remarkable...picking up the phone receiver, he dialed a number he had not dialed in some time. The voice immediately calmed his long-suffering nerves.

"Hello, Anthony. I fucking miss you." Are you sure that isn't I miss fucking you?

There was a pause. "Guy, you shouldn't be telephoning me."

"Of course I shouldn't. My whole life is shouldn't."

"Are you well? You don't sound well."

"No, I'm not well." He paused to light a cigarette. "I'm dying, Anthony."

"What?"

"Dying. It is what generally occurs when one ceases to live."

Anthony didn't say anything. Anthony was speechless. He was never speechless. His voice shook. "Guy, I'm coming to Moscow. I'll get the next plane"-

"Don't be an idiot. Of course you're not coming here. You and Jack and Her Majesty and Her Majesty's art would never allow you to come here. And I don't want you too, anyway," he lied. Lying was more familiar than telling the truth at this point. "I just needed to...to hear your voice. To talk to someone about anything."

"Guy, damnit"- Anthony was crying now and Guy felt a sort of perverse pleasure in hearing it.

"Stop it. People will think you're a ponce, bawling like that." He breathed. "Please, Anthony. Don't. I don't mind dying. You know damn well I don't regret a bloody thing, and if I don't, than you shouldn't either. Please. The fucking wire is expensive enough, and I don't wish to listen to you bleating. Just...talk to me."

"What...what about?"

"Literature. Politics. Fucking beautiful boys with big pricks. I don't care. As long as you talk to me. Talk, you understand."

Blunt understood. He understood, even a thousand kilometers away and a decade removed, Guy Burgess. Better than anyone did. "Well," he said, forcing himself to be steady. "Might I suggest we start with the big pricks and see where we end up?"

Guy smiled.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The last time Donald saw his father, he was withered away to a stick, all bones with a leathery stretching of skin covering them. He had lost all faith in God and Christ, or at least, wavered like a teeter-totter between faith and folly. He paced about his study until he was nearly blue, unable to breath. He hadn't spoken to his second son, who did not make it home from University in time to see him before he was cold. Donald, junior, did not kiss the body. Did not mumble a final prayer or words of love to his father's corpse. The last thing Senior had said to Junior had occurred the Christmas previous, as the nineteen-year old had been latching his suitcase to catch a train back to Trinity.

"I suppose you are the school tart, eh, boy?"

Junior looked at his hands as they fumbled over the lock but refused to blush. "No, Father."

Senior laughed, leaving him and his son was left to wonder if it had been a joke. Was he serious? Could he be? He remembered, six years previous, in his newly formed body, his father telling him don't disappoint me, Donald.

Donald was glad he was dead. Oh, he was devastated. But there was a calmness to the way his heart beat then; it no longer stung whenever the old man was around. His fists no longer clenched for no apparent reason. He did not have to tread the fine line between wanting to plunge his pocket knife into the shrunken chest and wanting to cry and hug him. It was over. Finally, over.

His own second son was also named Donald and there was nothing tartish about him. He was tall and bulky, reddish-blond hair pasted to his scalp with hair cream. His eyes were dark and his nose large. He dressed conservatively--sweaters and black trousers. He played rugby, tennis and cricket at school. He could spit very well, cuss when it was necessary and held eyes only for well-formed specimens of womanhood. When Donald saw his son for the last time, Junior was thirty, had sown his wild oats and was about to be settled down to marry, to have a brood of his own that he needn't abandon to defect to foreign countries. None of his children would be named Donald.

Father and son walked about the bank of the Yauza, the flowing lifeforce of Moscow, but lately made still as a corpse in winter's ice. Looking upon the river, it was as if time stood still, was unmoving. Donald had not seen his son in some time. He had overtaken him in height. His footfalls through the remaining March slush were heavy, sure. There was none of the uncertainty he himself had always felt. He could never be like Guy, to be sure. Nor could he be Kim. And perhaps not even Anthony--discrete, careful Anthony. What the deuce was he, anyway?

I suppose you are the school tart, eh, boy?

"I'm happy for you," Donald said to his son. "Catherine is a fine woman."

"Indeed."

"I wish you the blessing of many children."

"We have hopes."

"Donald?"

"Yes, Father?"

He cleared his throat. He had never been good at talking, particularly to his own children. He wasn't, even now, sure what exactly he wanted to say. He wanted to tell his boy that he needn't fear him. That it was okay if he didn't particularly care for him, after all he had put him through.

That no matter what, he would never be disappointed in him.

"Er...I wish you would send me a picture of you two. From the wedding. I'll be sorry I won't be able to attend." You'll never set foot in England, let alone America.

"Of course. Easily enough done."

"And tell your mother"--the younger Donald looked him directly in the eye--"that I send her my best wishes." He knew that his children blamed him for the dissolving of his marriage to Melinda. Despite the fact that she had fallen into another man's bed. Kim Philby's bed. But while his anger with his oldest friend remained, however varying from day to day, he could not be angry with his wife. He blamed only himself for that.

The third man to be called Donald Maclean and his fiancée left the next morning. His son had solemnly shaken his hand and Catherine had kissed him upon the cheek. Few, if any, words were spoken. It occurred to Donald after they left that his son was no more comfortable speaking to him than he was to him.   
*  
He tries to remember his son when he was a boy. He tries to remember anything, but he can't. He remembers a lot of whisky bottles buried in crumpled brown bags. He remembers lines of code, scribbled on bits of the Times or the Washington Post and then set on fire. He remembers a small black and white photograph of the only woman he has ever loved, ripped in half.

Some months later, he lies on a battered sofa stained with various forms of booze and stares at the cobwebs on the ceiling. There is a long letter clutched in one hand. In English, of course, though he has almost forgotten how to read his Mother tongue. There is also a picture. Young Donald and Catherine, bride and groom, looking conservative and American. As if he has any idea what Americans look like. On the back, in a careful hand, black ink is inscribed To Father, with love, Don and Cathy.

Don and Cathy. Don. Don? Bloody Fuck. Bloody Fucking Hell, he has produced a real person after all. He bawls and bawls, clutching the letter, with all its happy and miserable words until he can no longer remember if he is crying because he is happy or miserable.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Anthony's last painting was one of his own. He had been re-reading Blake, a perennial favourite, and had felt a strange compulsion to paint the tiger. To paint it burning bright in the forests of the night.

Although he had made art his life, (yes, art, everything else, however important, was façade, and art was the one thing he had never had to hide, to change), he had never developed much talent for his passion in his own hand. His eye, yes, but not his hand.

The result of the tiger was slightly more Impressionistic than he would have cared for--he was a Realist, after all--but he thought it one of his worthier attempts. The eyes in particular were well-formed, the cornucopia shape he had always imagined turned up like devil horns and with a radical point.

He carried it to the front window where the sun made it burn even more brightly than he originally intended. He found himself, despite the maxim, intrigued by watching the paint dry. It was exciting, somehow: the teeth that gnashed the canvas, the claws so near his own skin, the boiling steam and thick saliva dripping, respectively, from the nostrils and mouth.

It was as near to danger as he ever intended to get. He did not covet it as his friends had. Kim Philby needed it as other men need air, and Guy...well, every day had been a danger to him. Even Maclean, poor insecure, indecisive Donald, had managed the danger better than he. It had nearly ruined him. And perhaps that was why he had remained safe while they had not. Guy, dead. Maclean and Philby, either buried in the ground or buried in Russia, so far in the red ice that they never would see the sun again.

"Good God, what is that hideous thing?"

Jack Hewitt managed to look extremely revolted, even while wearing a yellow sweater with cardinals knitted on it. At sixty-five years old, he was far more blunt than his lover's name. Anthony had known that from the first time he had stripped naked in front of him and declared, I'm tired of being Guy Burgess's fuck boy.

"It's called art, dear boy," said Anthony, not offended in the least. Jackie had no taste whatsoever. It was part of his charm. "Why? Do you not like it?"

"If that is what passes as art nowadays than I hope they don't allow women and children into the exhibits. Nor pansies, for that matter. They would be scarred for life."

Anthony stared. The tiger was a little grotesque. Claws and teeth, massive, oversized. He wondered briefly what Freud would make of that--the obvious phallic imagery. "I've been reading Blake. I don't know why. I haven't since the book ."

"Tyger, tyger, burning bright/ In the forests of the night." Jack looked sufficiently proud of himself.

"A surprise! You are not completely uneducated in every aspect of culture save the burlesque theatre."

"I once memorised the poem. Years ago, in grammar school. Hadn't a bloody clue what the thing meant. Still don't, honest."

Anthony opened his mouth to explain, but as he did so, another thing altogether slipped out. "I'm afraid, Jack."

"What? Afraid? What on Earth of? Not the painting, I expect!" He laughed.

"Don't! I am serious, Jack!"

Hewitt winced. "Dear me. You are, aren't you?" He pressed his hand, once smooth, now deflated and gray, to Blunt's cheek.

Anthony closed his eyes, a tremble shooting through his face. "Jack..."

"My poor boy! You mustn't be afraid. Everyone who can directly implicate you is either dead or Russian Red."

There was silence as Blunt again regarded the tiger. He was trying to decide what had compelled him so suddenly to paint. He was paying the price. The arthritis was gnawing at his hands. "I miss Guy. I wish he were here." He breathed deeply. "Funny, isn't it? He's been dead these ten years, and I just now wish he were here."

Jack didn't reply. He glared at the painting.

"You know I mean nothing against you. You know I love only you."

"I know."

"It's only"-

Jack nodded. "Anthony, darling, nothing is going to happen to you."

The tiger seemed hideously disproportioned suddenly. And the Monazo orange was clearly a shade too bright for its fur. "I wish I were as confident as you."  
*******************************************************************************************************************

Some years later, he felt similar urge to paint. This time, it was nothing specific, just an image of red figures and snow, empty bottles and cold. This time he suppressed the urge.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kim was the last of them all. He sat in Guy Burgess's plush armchair, bequeathed to him in his will two decades ago and gazed at his bare walls. Anthony and Donald were dead, too. Within weeks of one another. Faded into the night, they had. He had a feeling there would be nothing in their wills for him. Blunt had been disgraced, but safe. Still had had his art and Jack Hewitt. He would never admit they shared a love for Blake and Bloody Marys, let alone that they had babysat Burgess and Maclean all those years. And Donald? The only thing he would leave him would be a big `Fuck You' and he deserved it. He thought of Melinda. Red, White and Blue Melinda Marling Maclean. The long golden hair spilling on top of him. Fuck, she was gorgeous.

She was also Donald's. Donald, his best friend. Donald, who had bawled on his shoulder when his father died. Who had listened to him, trusted him, when he talked him into the kind of life that he was still living. He remembered drinking vodka with him, playing chess and tennis with him, laughing with him, protecting him. He remembered how Donald's bottom lip would twitch, how he smelled of lemon when they met, and booze when they met last.

And he had abandoned Melinda. Abandoned her for Rufina. Ru was so strong. So lovely. So Russian. And so damned young. He loved her and she deserved better than he. Deserved better than a couple of bare walls and a bare husband.

There were his children, too. Like a bloody plant, he had spread his seed to the wind and they had blown away, never to be seen. Actually, that wasn't the complete truth. He saw them--one here, another there--but they were like faded photograph stills in his mind. Unmoving, frozen in time.

He lit a cigarette. Dunhill. Some things did not change. He blew the smoke straight in the air and watched it fall back on him. Anymore, the tobacco stuck to the back of his throat and he coughed up a lung. Aging was Hell. Aging was punishment. Just like being alone. Being left alone.

He stumbled across the cold room to the opposite wall. There was a bookcase there, one of the few pieces of furniture he still owned. Chipped mahogany missing one foot. There was Kipling, Greene, le Carré--the latter was supposed to be infatuated with him--among others. His fingers closed around the red dust-jacket of one in particular. Baroque and Rococo Architecture and Decoration--Sir Anthony Blunt. Sir Anthony Blunt. Well, no longer. But that was all he gave up. The spine creaked when he opened it. He breathed in the smell of dusty paper. The book was not particularly well thumbed. Which explains why he'd forgotten about the photograph.

There they were. Captured together for the first and only time. In black and white back in the time when life and their beliefs seemed black and white. Burgess, arm around Blunt, God-Awful pink and yellow tie (if memory served) hung askew around his neck like a noose. Donald, tall and beautiful, arms crossed, nails bitten down to nubs. Anthony, who could never smile, had nay a wrinkle in his suit. And Bloody Hell, was that really Kim Philby? The crooked grin, the crooked hair part, the crooked eyebrow. He never imagined it possible that he had been that young. His eyesight was going, and he squinted into his bifocals to make sure. Like the Four Musketeers. All for one and one for all. JesusMaryandJoseph. What a set of heroes they were.   
*******************************************************************************************************************  
When Ru returned, she found him smoking, staring at something that looked like a bent old photograph in his hand. He had let the fire burn down to ash again. She unloaded groceries into the refrigerator. The comrades had sent him more of the Cooper's marmalade he loved. And cricket magazines. And a carton of Dunhill's. And another case of vodka. She threw must of that in the trash. He was too thirsty these days.

"Chem ty seychas zanimaeshsya?" She asked him.

"Practicing ancient history. I read history at Cambridge, you know."

"What does it mean `practicing ancient history'? Eh? You're not drink too much again?"

She watched as he shoved the picture into a book and lit another cigarette. "I rather fancy a chicken for dinner tonight. What about you?"

She shook her head. "Whatever you want, lyubimaya."

He was studying his wrists. It was one of those topics she was forbidden to ask about. The silver marks were visible in the glow of the fire. Rufina put the kettle on to make tea and lit the fire to roast Kim's chicken.  
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

One February, although not the 19th, their recently acquired flat is buried in snow, cigarette butts and Vladivar vodka bottles. Kim, recently returned from Spain, stares so closely at the fire he can feel his nostril hairs scorch. He is smoking incessantly, wincing every time the wood pops and cracks. Gunfire. The hair on his left temple has yet to grow back, a thin pink scar only beginning to be covered.

Guy, sitting with red-stocking feet propped upon the £10,000 Chippendale desk, folds bits of paper into various origami shapes. His latest is something like a crane, and it hovers dangerously close to the brim of his vodka glass.

Anthony sits on the settée facing Donald, a battered chess-set between them. They've been going at it for over an hour, this one game. Donald constantly second-guesses his every move, hand clutching each piece even after it is in place, always doubting. Blunt is equally slow, although he doesn't touch a piece until he is ready to move it. His arms are folded assuredly across his chest. He is confidant, appearing far more so than he ever feels.

No one speaks for several minutes. The only noise is the occasionally tapping of the chess pieces, the cracks and pops of the fire, and the clinks of Guy's glass, constantly refilled. Outside, there is a slight tinkling of snow piling against the window, trapping them in. As usual, it is Guy who can stand the silence least. He shoves his paper creation into the clear booze and fairly shouts, "What was your first impression of me?"

Blunt and Maclean look at him, Philby does not. "To whom where you speaking, Guy?"

He snorts. " `To whom was I speaking?' Bloody Hell, Anthony!" But then he holds up another bit of paper, a heart, slightly lopsided. He laughs and throws it at Blunt. "You're breaking it, my dear Anthony. Breaking it right in half! I'm speaking to...to Donald, of course."

"Hmm? What was that, Guy?"

"I asked you, Donald Duart Maclean, what was your first impression of me?"

Donald is studying his scarred side-castle; the black stain on it is chipped away on one side. "I...well, I rather don't know." The first time he had seen Burgess, Guy had been completely sloshed, (which was nothing new, he was always sloshed), had broken a bottle, and had taken a swing for Kim Philby.

"You thought I was a nutter."

"Well, yes," he catches Guy's eye. "I mean, no."

"Good old Donald. True blue as ever...and what about you, Anthony? What was your first impression of me?"

But Blunt, who is about to sacrifice his bishop to check Maclean, only smiles and doesn't answer. He knows what he thought and still thinks. He wants to grab the bottle, the bottles, and break them on his stupid head for killing himself by the glassful. He would then rip his own heart out so it would stop beating for fucking Burgess.

"Never mind," Guy says, blowing a large blue smoke ring. "I already know what Anthony thought. He thought I was the most fuckable thing on two legs."

"Do you ever think about anything besides fucking?"

They all turn to Kim. He has spoken barely a word in days. He could have been killed, as everyone else in the car he was riding was. He could have been blown-up into little pieces like Julian Bell, or like the thousands of others fighting Franco's oppression or the Nazis that were supposedly not in Spain. The little children. Shot, hacked-up for no reason.

"Kim"- begins Anthony, always the peacemaker.

"No, it's alright." Guy reaches for his latest bottle, and pours two glasses. He slithers over to the armchair opposite his friend and presses one into his hand. "Perhaps you're right, Kim. Perhaps I do think about nothing but fucking big, beautiful boys. That is what you think, right?"

He has a way of staring at a person, a way of keeping his face like a stone tablet, so that no one could tell if he was seriously narked or seriously kidding. Philby has always been a little wary of Burgess. He seems to have a dagger permanently hanging over his head, the thread getting smaller and smaller by the day. And besides, he doesn't think that. He remembers Guy's words, babies die in this country because they aren't fed properly. He had looked him in the eye. He could glue himself to anyone's eyes when he was grave, it happened so infrequently. I hate it with all my being and I would do anything to change it.

"No," Kim says.

"No?"

"I know you think about other things. You're brilliant, I've always thought so."

"Am I?"

"You don't always act it, though. Why does it always have to be about you, Guy?"

"About me?" He downs the vodka and tosses the glass into the fire. "Do you hear this, Anthony? Apparently, despite the brilliance Kim Philby has always thought I possessed, I act as though I am the only one important on this bloody sphere we call home. Do you believe that?" He flies to his feet.

Silence. Kim looks away, eyes wide. Perhaps he'll kill me now. And he knows that no matter what, he won't fight back. After all that Guy, and Anthony and Donald for that matter, have done, he can't hit one of them.

But then there is the most horrid sound imaginable, like someone wrenching rusty nails from old wood. Guy is twirling around laughing. "Ah, Kim...H...A...R...Philby. Do you know...seriously now...do you know what I thought when I first saw you?"

"Guy." Anthony is to his feet now. Donald slowly follows, his hands fumbling madly for his trouser pockets.

"I thought," he plops back down and takes Kim's hand, "that here is a man that will change the world. Only a few people have the capacity to do this, mind, and most of those will not ever reach actualisation. They're weak. They're afraid. But you"--he sticks his finger in his chest--"you aren't. Harold Adrian Russell Philby is one of the few that will change this world."

"Yes," Donald says immediately, surprising the others. "He's right, Kim. We all know it. That's why it's hardest for you."

"It is also why you'll do the most good." Anthony now, and he speaks as the assumed leader.

Kim looks at each one in turn. "Bloody Hell," he mumbles. His hand rises to his eyes, rubbing. He carefully avoids the outward scar. "Four Mighty Ones are in every man: a perfect Unity cannot exist but from the Universal Brotherhood of Eden."

Anthony smiles. "The Universal Man, to Whom be Glory evermore ."

"Amen," Donald finishes, his voice filled with a rare certainty.

Guy glares at them, lights a cigarette. "I suppose we shall have to have a hug and a secret handshake after that. Christ! Blake and all. I hope you were writing that down for posterity, Kim. Should be your bleeding epitaph."

"Yes, Guy, thanks for that." He rises to his feet and goes to fetch them all a fresh drink. His muscles seem mobile for the first time in days. As the bottle is in his hand, he pauses, turns back around. "By the way, do you know what my first impression of you was?"  
***

 


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